AAPL stock splits 7-to-1, opens trading at $92

Do not adjust your sets: Despite finishing Friday at $645, Apple stock will open today at around $92. This is the result of a 7-to-1 stock split, which will see the price of the stock divided by seven and shareholders of record awarded six additional shares on top of their existing holdings.Apple announced the split earlier this year in what we referred to at the time as an “earth-shattering earnings call.”Apple’s stock has split on three previous occasions, with 2-for-1 splits taking place in 1987, 2000 and 2005. While Apple claims its aim is to make the stock “more accessible” to a wider range of customers, it’s also possible that Apple is shooting for inclusion in the Dow Jones Industrial Average index, which is price-weighted.Whereas Apple’s previous stock price of close to $700 would have resulted in a significant reweighting of the index, a price of $92 would place it in the right range for inclusion. This would allow Apple, the world’s most valuable publicly traded company, to join the likes of AT&T, Cisco, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Verizon on the index.With Apple having gone public December 12, 1980, for $22 per share, accounting for all stock splits in the company’s history this would give a rough return of 23,400 percent over 33.5 years.Apple’s all-time high stock price was $705, reached in September 2012. That would translate to $100.72, post-split.